In mid-May 2024, the Russian TV channel Zvezda reported that during protests in Georgia, demonstrators placed posters depicting the leader of Ukrainian nationalists on parliament columns. We decided to check if this is true.
On May 14, Zvezda correspondent Katerina Radomskaya, while broadcasting from Tbilisi, showed the consequences of the protest. “This is what the parliament building has become during the days of protest: the walls are striped with slogans, photographs of Stepan Bandera are pasted on.” Now this story is not on the channel’s website, but an excerpt from it has gone viral. Telegram channels And Facebook on the same day.
The first protests related to the plans of the ruling Georgian Dream party to adopt a law on “foreign agents” took place in Georgia in 2023. Then, due to street demonstrations, the bill was withdrawn, but in April 2024, deputies began considering an almost identical document - and on May 14 accepted him, despite the rallies of thousands. The protests continued after that. The country's president, Salome Zurabishvili, is in opposition to the Georgian Dream. imposed The bill is vetoed, but the ruling party will most likely be able to overcome it.
The protests were covered, among other things, by the Zvezda TV channel, owned by the Russian Ministry of Defense. One of the stories was dedicated to opponents of the law on “foreign agents.” In the video, the correspondent points to the walls of parliament: posters with a portrait on a pale blue background are indeed clearly visible there.
In the video, these posters are too far away to see the details and read the signature under the portrait. But in high-quality photographs taken from the same point on the same day, which journalist Valeria Fayzullina shared with Verified, the face of the person depicted is visible much better.
The same poster was published on May 1st in Facebook Tamara Chergoleishvili, member of the opposition party "European Georgia" The person depicted on the poster does not at all resemble the leader of Ukrainian nationalists Stepan Bandera.
In fact, he is a Georgian symbolist poet Titian Tabidze. In the original photograph he stands next to another Georgian writer, Valerian Gaprindashvili. On the website dedicated to Tabidze indicatedthat the photo was taken in 1916.
For Georgians Titian Tabidze - one of the main symbols of political repression. In 1937, when the Tbilisi poetic community was destroyed, Tabidze was arrested and shot. Therefore, the portrait of a poet sentenced to death allegedly for collaborating with foreign intelligence is a completely understandable allusion for opponents of the law on “foreign agents.”
It is even more difficult to see images of Bandera on other posters. On one of them - portrait of the Catholicos-Patriarch Ambrose (1861–1927), also suffered from Soviet repression.
And on the other - caricature, which depicts the chairman of the Georgian Dream party and, until January 2024, the country’s prime minister, in the image of a pig Irakli Garibashvili.
Thus, the posters from the story of the Russian TV channel have nothing to do with Bandera. The Zvezda correspondent either made a mistake or deliberately misled the audience.
Cover photo: screenshot “Verified”
Read on topic:
- "Myth Detector". Misinformation that Stepan Bandera is depicted on banners pasted on the Georgian parliament building.
- Paper Kartuli. The Georgian Parliament nevertheless adopted a law on “foreign agents” - Paper Kartuli tells what was happening at its walls at that moment
- Is it true that the American law on “foreign agents” is stricter than in Russia?
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